The Standoff
by CretianStar
Summary: The battle between Sherlock and Jim didn't just stay between the two of them after the Reichenbach Fall. One Shot!


A/N: Okay short little one, but it's been plaguing me since last night when I practically dreamt it. The end seems a little weak to me and I may even tweak that but for now it stays like that. Anyway please enjoy this strange little thing!

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There were a lot of differences between Doctor John Watson and the disgraced Colonel Sebastian Moran; Seb was taller than average at 6'4" and blonde, with piercing brown eyes that were cold and calculating. John was shorter at 5'8", with short brown hair and blue eyes that seemed to hold every emotion at once, and them amplify it.

Then again there were also a lot of similarities.

John Watson had always hovered at the edges of his sociopath's world, but he was always there for him.

Sebastian Moran had always hovered at the edges of his psychopath's world, but he was always there for him.

John Watson was an ex-soldier, a doctor, used to saving lives.

Sebastian Moran was an ex-soldier, a sniper, used to taking lives.

The two had so much in common, for instance, both had a gun pointing at their heads.

Sebastian Moran, having Jim for a boss knew of John Watson's existence; it was Seb who had aimed the rifle at the old soldier when the showdown was happening on the roof top of St Barts.

John Watson had only just found out about Sebastian Moran.

For the year and a half that Sherlock had been gone, John had gone through a myriad of emotions – first despair and grief, then anger, at both the world and at Sherlock. Finally he found determination.

Six months since Sherlock's leap of faith off of the top of the hospital John's mind had puzzled itself into a frenzy at his best friend's actions. John admitted he wasn't a great judge of character; if he had been, he'd have seen through that Jim from IT disguise. But John hadn't spent almost every waking moment with Jim from IT, he shared it with Sherlock. John Watson came to the conclusion that Sherlock had lied, had saved John's life by his own sacrificial death.

John was determined to find out why.

Sebastian Moran had also been grieving; James Moriarty was his best friend, not that Jim would ever admit it. However he could not show such grief; Jim had left him his Empire and someone needed to run it; to keep every thread in place, every cog of the delicate machine running smoothly. Only Sebastian wasn't Jim, and Seb never saw someone hacking at minor parts of the mechanism.

He had come back from chasing a rumour that someone was interfering in their Chinese smuggling ring, which had Sherlock written all over it, only he was dead. He sat in the front room of the house he once shared with James, staring at the beige walls, the lavish cushions on expensive suede sofas, the prissy footstool that Jim had loved to hog. He looked at it all, lost in the memories, when he heard the gun click at the base of his skull.

Sighing, Sebastian Moran pulled out his own gun and aimed the nose of it at his attacker.

"Doctor John Watson." He recognised the hard set of determination in the shorter man's face.

"Colonel Sebastian Moran." John bit out, looking at his would-be murderer.

Neither men looked away from the other, both could see the grief welling up in their eyes, the anger. John suddenly clocked the anger was not aimed at him.

"You miss him." John said, his taut position relaxing just a miniscule amount as Sebastian's only tightened. "You miss him more than you thought you ever would. You thought you'd be glad of his childish, psychotic moments; you believed you'd have an easier life. But he was the easiest part of your life, and without him, it all seems so tough." The gun in John's hand drooped slightly, as did Seb's.

John Watson was in as much pain as he was.

"You realise that every time you pandered to his needs, it made you feel, wanted, needed. Not just some broken soldier who's bored of civilian life." Seb stated, watching as John nodded, the guns were reholstered wordlessly.

"You understand everything." Seb whispered as he stared at the shorter man.

"More than I ever wanted to, if someone was to tell me I'd get more hassle back in civvies I'd tell them have they never been to Afghanistan?" John said as Seb sat in one of the plush chairs.

"I know. Being in the army was tough but being with James was even tougher, yet I relished the challenge."

Both men sat in an unusual yet companionable silence, neither really dealing with the fact their enemy was sat across from them and there was no violence, no threats, no nothing.

There was a strange sense of brotherhood; the two men united in their grieving of two very strange men, two very strange but brilliant men that had been bored with the mundane, the average and the dull. James Moriarty and Sherlock Holmes may have been unusual, but for John Watson and Sebastian Moran, the unusual was better than any civilian day.


End file.
